Christians throughout the Islamic
world are under attack. Unlike Muslim attacks on Christians,
which are regularly confused with a myriad of social factors, the
ongoing attacks on Christian churches in the Muslim world are perhaps
the most visible expression of Christian persecution under Islam. In
churches, Christians throughout the Islamic world are simply being
Christians—peacefully and apolitically worshipping their God. And
yet modern day Muslim governments try to prevent them, Muslim mobs
attack them, and Muslim jihadis massacre them.

To understand the nature of this
perennial hostility, one must first examine Muslim doctrines concerning
Christian churches; then look at how these teachings have manifested
themselves in reality over the course of centuries; and finally
look at how modern day attacks on Christian churches mirror the attacks
of history, often in identical patterns. The continuity is
undeniable.

Because tracing and documenting the
treatment of churches across the thousands of miles of formerly
Christian lands conquered by Islam is well beyond the purview of this
study, a paradigm is needed. Accordingly, an examination of the
treatment of Christian churches in Egypt suffices as a model for
understanding the fate churches under Islamic dominion.
Indeed, as one of the oldest and largest Muslim nations, with one of
the oldest and largest Christian populations, Egypt is the ultimate
paragon for understanding all aspects of Christianity under Islam, both
past and present. [For a complete survey of the fate of
Christians and their churches throughout the entire Muslim world, both
past and present, see author’s new book, Crucified Again: Exposing
Islam’s New War on Christians.]

Muslim Doctrine Concerning Churches

Sharia law is draconian if not
hostile to Christian worship. Consider the words of some of
Islam’s most authoritative and classic jurists, the same ones revered
today by Egypt’s Salafis. According to Ibn Qayyim author of the
multivolume Rules for the Dhimmis, it is “obligatory” to destroy or
convert into a mosque “every church” both old and new that exists on
lands that were taken by Muslims through force, for they “breed
corruption.” Even if Muslims are not sure whether one of “these
things [churches] is old [pre-conquest] or new, it is better to err on
the side of caution, treat it as new, and demolition it.”

Likewise, Ibn Taymiyya confirms that
“the ulema of the Muslims from all four schools of law—Hanafi, Shafi‘i,
Maliki, Hanbali, and others, including al-Thawri, al-Layth, all the way
back to the companions and the followers—are all agreed that if the
imam destroys every church in lands taken by force, such as Egypt,
Sudan, Iraq, Syria … this would not be deemed unjust of him,” adding
that, if Christians resist, “they forfeit their covenant, their lives,
and their possessions.” Elsewhere he writes, “Wherever Muslims live and
have mosques, it is impermissible for any sign of infidelity to be
present, churches or otherwise.”

Echoing the words of the jurists
that the church is “worse than bars and brothels” and “houses of
torment and fire,” in August 2009, Dar al-Ifta, an Al Azhar affiliate,
issued a fatwa likening the building of a church to “a nightclub, a
gambling casino, or building a barn for rearing pigs, cats or
dogs.” In July 2012, Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, a prominent figure in
Egypt’s Salafi movement, issued a fatwa forbidding Muslim taxi-drivers
and bus-drivers from transporting Coptic Christian priests to their
churches, which he depicted as “more forbidden than taking someone to a
liquor bar.”

Regardless, one need only examine
the Conditions of Omar—an influential document Muslims attribute to 7th
century Caliph Omar, purportedly ratified with a conquered Christian
community—to appreciate the plight of the church under Islam. Among
other things, conquered Christians had to agree:

Not to build a church in our city…
and not to repair those that fall in ruins or are in Muslim quarters;….
Not to clang our cymbals except lightly and from the innermost recesses
of our churches; Not to display a cross on them [churches], nor raise
our voices during prayer or readings in our churches anywhere near
Muslims; Not to produce a cross or [Christian] book in the markets of
the Muslims;…. [I]f we change or contradict these conditions imposed
upon ourselves . . . we forfeit our dhimma [covenant], and we become
liable to the same treatment you inflict upon the people who resist and
cause sedition.

History

When it comes to churches, Islamic
history is a testimony to Islamic doctrine: under Muslim rule, from the
7th century to the present, tens of thousands of churches that were
once spread across thousands of miles of formerly Christian lands, were
attacked, plundered, ransacked, destroyed and/or converted into
mosques. Such a large number is consistent with the fact that, at
the time of the Muslim conquests, half of the world’s entire Christian
population lived in those lands invaded and subjugated by Islam.

According to one medieval Muslim
historian, over the two-year-course of a particularly ruthless
Christian persecution campaign, some 30,000 churches were burned or
pillaged in Egypt and Syria alone. Major church attacks during
Abbasid rule include when “the Muslims in Jerusalem made a rising [in
936] and burnt down the Church of the Resurrection [believed to be
built atop the tomb of Christ] which they plundered, and destroyed all
they could of it.” Nearly a century later, Caliph Hakim bi-Amr Allah
(r. 996-1021) ordered that the already ravaged Church of the
Resurrection be torn down “to its very foundations, apart from what
could not be destroyed or pulled up, and they also destroyed the
Golgotha and the Church of Saint Constantine and all that they
contained, as well as all the sacred gravestones. They even tried to
dig up the graves and wipe out all traces of their existence.”

A Coptic Paradigm

The history, or plight, of Egypt’s
Coptic Orthodox Church is well preserved. The History of the
Patriarchate of the Egyptian Church, for instance, a multivolume
chronicle begun under Coptic Bishop Severus ibn al-Muqaffa in the 10th
century, records innumerable massacres and persecutions over the
centuries, from destroyed churches, to crucified Christians, to raped
and murdered nuns.

However, to bypass the objection
that Christian writers may have been biased against their persecutors,
let us content ourselves with the famous history of Taqi al-Din
al-Maqrizi (1364 – 1442), the most authoritative Muslim scholar of
Egyptian history in the Middle Ages. His account appears
especially objective when one considers that the pious Muslim Maqriz
was no friend to the Christians. For example, after recounting
centuries of persecution and church destruction at the hands of
Muslims, Maqrizi concludes by sounding like a modern-day Salafi,
blaming Christians for their own persecution: “For from the traces they
left, will then be seen how shamefully they intrigued against Islamism
and the followers of it, as any one may know who looks into the lowness
of their origin, and the old hated of their ancestors towards our
religion and the doings thereof.”

In Maqrizi’s account, things appear
relatively quiet during the first century of Islam’s occupation of
Egypt (circa 641-741), no doubt due to the fact that Christians still
numerically overwhelmed their Muslim conquerors. By 767, however,
after decades of Coptic uprisings in face of abuses, “heavier hardships
than ever fell upon the Christians, who were obliged to eat the[ir]
dead; while their new churches in Egypt were destroyed. The
church of Mary anent [alongside] that of Abu Senuda in Egypt was also
pulled down, as well as that in the ward of Constantine, which the
Christians entreated Suliman bin Ali, Emir of Egypt, to spare for fifty
thousand dinars; but he would not.” By 845, al-Mutawakal ordered
Christian churches to be pulled down. In 912, “the great church
in Alexandria, known as that of the Resurrection, was burnt down.” In
939, “the Muslims made another rising in the city of Askalon, where
they demolished the Greek Church of Mary, and plundered what was in it.”

Then comes the era of the
aforementioned Caliph Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who decimated the Church of
the Resurrection in Jerusalem. In the words of al-Maqrizi:

And in his [al-Hakim’s] time,
hardships such as one never saw befell the Christians…. He then
laid his hands on all endowments of the churches and of the
monasteries, which he confiscated to the public treasury, and wrote to
that effect to all his provinces. He then burnt the wood of a
great many crosses, and forbade the Christians to buy men or maid
servants [which were often set free]; he pulled down the churches that
were in the street Rashida, outside the city of Misr [Old Cairo].
He then laid in ruins the churches of al-Maqs outside Cairo, and made
over their contents to the people, who plundered them of more goods
than can be told. He threw down the convent of al-Qosseir, and
gave it to the people to sack….He then set about demolishing all
churches, and made over to the people, as prey and forfeit, all that
was in them, and all that was settled on them. They were then all
demolished, all their furniture and chattels were plundered, their
endowments were forfeited to others, and mosques were built in their
place. He allowed the call to prayer from the church of Senuda in
Misr; and built a wall around the church of Mo’allaqa [the Hanging
Church], in Qasr esh-Sema. Then many people [Muslims] sent up
letters to request to be allowed to search the churches and monasteries
in provinces of Egypt. But their request was hardly delivered [at
headquarters], when a favourable answer was returned to the request; so
they took the vessels and chattel of the churches and of the
monasteries, and sold them in the market places of Egypt, together with
what they found in those churches of gold and silver vessels, and
things of the kind; and bartered their endowments. The emir
also wrote to the intendants of the provinces to support the Muslims in
their destruction of the churches and of monasteries. And the
work of demolition in Egypt was so general in the year 1012, that
according to statements on which one can rely, as to what was
demolished at the end of the year 1014, both in Egypt and in Syria and
the provinces thereof, of temples built by the Greeks—it amounted to
more than 3,000 churches [the original Arabic says 30,000]. All the
gold and silver vessels in them were plundered, their endowments were
forfeited; and those endowments were splendid and bestowed on wonderful
edifices.

Finally, after describing different
forms of persecutions against Christians during Hakim’s reign, Maqrizi,
the Muslim historian, makes an interesting observation: “Under these
circumstances a great many Christians became Muslims.” In another
place, after recounting how “the greater number of the churches of the
Sa‘id [Upper Egypt] had been pulled down, and mosques built in their
stead,” the historian notes again the typical consequence: “more than
four hundred and fifty Christians became Muslims in one day.”

It bears repeating that the Muslim
Maqrizi had no great love for Egypt’s Christians, and made
disparaging observations concerning them in his volumes—thereby making
his account of persecution all the more trustworthy.

Because Hakim’s persecution was so
terrible and far-reaching, most modern Western historians acknowledge
it, even as they portray it as an aberration of a madman, implying that
Christians suffered only under his rule. Yet there is no dearth of
Muslim leaders throughout the whole of Islamic history that did not at
one time or another persecute Christians and their churches.

If Hakim is remembered as a terrible
and insane tyrant, consider Caliph Harun al-Rashid, who in the West is
depicted as a colorful and fun-loving prankster in the Arabian
Nights. Though renowned for his secular pursuits—including
riotous living, strong drink and harems of concubines, to the point
that a modern day female Kuwaiti activist referred to him as a model to
justify the institution of sex-slavery—Harun al-Rashid was still pious
enough “to force Christians to distinguish themselves by dress, to
expel them from their positions, and to destroy their churches through
the use of fatwas by the imams.” Similarly, Saladin (Salah
ad-Din)—another Muslim ruler who is habitually portrayed in the West as
magnanimous and tolerant—commanded that all crucifixes on Coptic church
domes be destroyed, and that “whoever saw that the outside of a church
was white, to cover it with black dirt,” as a sign of degradation.

Indeed, in 1354, well after the “mad
caliph” Hakim was gone, churches were still under attack, including by
Muslim mobs, who, according to Maqrizi, “demolished a church anent the
Bridge of Lions, and a church in the street el-Asra in Misr, and the
Church of Fahhadin within the precincts of Cairo; also the Convent of
Nehya in Djizah, and a church in the neighborhood of Bataq al-Tokruni;
they plundered the wealth of the churches they demolished, which was
great; and carried away even the woodwork and slabs of alabaster.
They rushed upon the churches of Misr and Cairo…”

Such was the state of affairs of
churches under Islam, explaining how, over the course of nearly 14
centuries, former centers of Christianity like Egypt, were reduced to
sporadic enclaves that came to resemble dilapidated strongholds of
Christianity surrounded by a sea of Muslim hostility.

And such is the state of affairs of
Christian churches throughout much of the Muslim world at this very
moment as the past returns to the present.

The Modern Era

The sort of Muslim attacks on
Christian churches described by the historian Maqrizi and conforming to
the Conditions of Omar are reoccurring with increased frequency.
Again, while the patterns described above are occurring all
around the Muslim world—sometimes even in the West—modern day Egypt
alone, with its significant Christian population, offers an abundance
of recent examples.

After some 14 centuries of
persecution and church attacks, Egypt’s Copts ushered in the 2011 new
year by having one of their largest churches attacked: during midnight
mass in the early hours of January 1, 2011, the Two Saints Coptic
Church in Alexandria, crowded with hundreds of Christian worshippers
praying for the new year, was bombed, leaving at least 23 dead and
approximately 100 injured. According to eyewitnesses, “body parts
were strewn all over the street outside the church. The body parts were
covered with newspapers until they were brought inside the church after
some Muslims started stepping on them and chanting jihadi chants,”
including “Allahu Akbar!” Islam’s victory cry since the days of
Muhammad. Eyewitnesses further attest that “security forces
withdrew one hour before the church blast.” One year earlier,
“drive-by Muslims shot to death six Christians as they were leaving
church after celebrating Christmas mass in 2010” in Nag Hammadi.

No Church Bells, Crosses, or Renovations

The story of St. George Coptic
Church in Edfu is especially instructive of the plight of churches in
Egypt. Built nearly a century ago, during the Christian “Golden
Age,” St. George was so dilapidated that the local council and governor
approved its renovation and signed off on the design. Soon local
Muslims began complaining, making various demands, including that the
church be devoid of crosses and bells—as stipulated by the Conditions
of Omar—because they were “irritating Muslims and their children.”
Leaders later insisted that the very dome of the church be
removed. Arguing that removal of the dome would likely collapse
the church, the bishop refused. The foreboding cries of “Allahu Akbar!”
began; Muslims threatened to raze the church and build a mosque in its
place; Copts were “forbidden to leave their homes or buy food until
they remove the dome of St. George’s Church”; many starved for weeks.

Then, after Friday prayers on
September 30, 2011, some 3,000 Muslims rampaged the church, torched it,
and demolished the dome; flames from the wreckage burned nearby
Christian homes, which were further ransacked by rioting Muslims.
Security, which was present, just “stood there watching,” according to
Christian eyewitnesses. Edfu’s Intelligence Unit chief was seen
directing the mob destroying the church. Even the governor of
Aswan appeared on State TV and “denied any church being torched,”
calling it a “guest home.” He even justified the incident by
arguing that the church contractor made the building three meters
higher than he had permitted: “Copts made a mistake and had to be
punished, and Muslims did nothing but set things right, end of story,”
he proclaimed on TV.

It was this incident which caused
Egypt’s Christians to protest in October 2011, leading to the Maspero
Massacre, when the Egyptian military intentionally targeted and killed
dozens of Christian protesters, including by running them over with
armored vehicles—even as state media lied by portraying the Christians
as the aggressors and the military as the victim, a narrative which the
Western mainstream media gullibly disseminated.

In July 2011, a Muslim mob went on a
violent spree, attacking, among others a 5-month pregnant Christian
woman and other Christians who were “beaten with iron rods and
pipes.” According to Fr. Estephanos of the region, “The
real reason behind this assault was the church bell, which has greatly
angered the Muslims in the village. This is the first time such an
incident has taken place in this village which is 60-75% Christian, and
the reason is definitely the presence of the church bell.” As
seen in the Conditions of Omar, church bells are forbidden in Islam.

Similarly, in October 2011, in the
Upper Egyptian village of Elmadmar which only has two churches to serve
15,000 Christians, Muslim mobs surrounded one of these two churches,
St. Mary’s Church, hurling bricks at it and trying to demolish it,
while chanting “No to the church.” Although it has had state security
approval to operate, its license was still pending. According to the
priest, “Muslims claim that we hold a mass every day at 4 PM, and we
ring the church bell, which the church does not have, besides singing
hymns, which they claim disturbs them.”

Collective Punishment

Many attacks on Coptic churches
occur in the context of “collective punishment,” which also has echoes
tracing back to the Conditions of Omar. After naming any number of
other conditions—including not displaying crosses, not ringing bells,
not singing loudly—the Conditions of Omar concludes by having
Christians agree that “if we change or contradict these conditions
imposed upon ourselves . . . we forfeit our dhimma [covenant], and we
become liable to the same treatment you inflict upon the people who
resist and cause sedition.”

Accordingly, throughout Islamic
history to the present moment, anytime any Christian anywhere has been
accused of breaking Sharia’s dhimmi laws, churches—at once the most
obvious and vulnerable representation of Christianity—are first to be
attacked in retribution by the Muslim mob, often in the context of
collective punishment.

This has centuries of historical
precedents. While discussing the status of churches in the Middle East
after the Islamic invasions, Bat Ye’or writes “they were often burned
or demolished in the course of reprisals against infidels found guilty
of overstepping their rights.” Collective punishment is even
doctrinally approved: the Yemeni jurist al-Murtada wrote, “The
agreement will be canceled if all or some of them break it.” At the
other end of the Arab world, the Moroccan jurist al-Maghili taught that
“the fact that one individual (or one group) among them has broken the
statute is enough to invalidate it for all of them.”

Thus, for some 14 centuries churches
have been treated as hostages to guarantee good (that is, submissive)
Christian behavior. For example, in March 2011, a Muslim mob
attacked the local Church of the Two Martyrs in Sool, south of Cairo,
burning it down, even as a Muslim prayer leader called on Muslims to
“kill all the Christians.” Adding insult to injury, the attackers
played “soccer” with the ancient relic-remains of the church’s saints
and martyrs. Afterwards, throngs of Muslims gathered around the
scorched building where they spent some 20 hours pounding its walls
down with sledgehammers to cries of “Allahu Akbar.”

Even minor details like desecrating
the relics of Coptic saints have immense continuity. Discussing
the Muslim attack on the Church of Shubra, Maqriz writes: “after it had
been demolished, the fingers of a [Christian] martyr which were kept in
a casket…. Were then burnt in presence of the Sultan…”

Neither the military nor state
security appeared—and this was happening near Cairo, Egypt’s capital,
not some inaccessible village. After demolishing it, a group of Muslims
held prayers at the site and began making plans to build a mosque atop
the destroyed church—a live example of history, almost identical to the
examples recorded a millennium earlier by the Egyptian historian
Maqrizi and others. Because of the attack, Copts in Sool fled to
adjacent villages. Women who remained in the village were sexually
assaulted.

Less violently, in January, 2012,
before a bishop was going to celebrate Epiphany Mass in the Abu Makka
church, several Muslims, mostly Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood members,
entered the building, saying that the church had no permit and no
Christian can pray in it. One Muslim was heard to remark that the
building would be suitable for a Muslim mosque.

In May 2011, throngs of Muslims,
estimated at 3,000, fired guns and rifles and hurled Molotov cocktails
at Coptic churches, homes, and businesses in the Imbaba region near
Cairo: twelve Christians were killed—some shot by snipers atop
rooftops—232 injured; three churches were set aflame to cries of
“Allahu Akbar,” while Coptic homes were looted and torched. As
usual, Egyptian leadership did little to stop this rampage, showing up
nearly five hours after it began, providing ample time to terrorize the
Copts. One priest said “I called everyone, but no one bothered to come.
I mourn all those young people who died.” The pretext for this
particular attack was that a Christian girl had converted to Islam and
the Coptic Church had supposedly responded by abducting and torturing
her into renouncing Islam. Muslims found this argument
persuasive, of course, because that is precisely what Islam requires
Muslims to do to female apostates who convert to Christianity.

In February 2012, thousands of
Muslims attacked a Coptic church, demanding the death of its pastor,
who, along with “nearly 100 terrorized Copts sought refuge inside the
church, while Muslim rioters were pelting the church with stones in an
effort to break into the church, assault the Copts and torch the
building.” They did this because a Christian girl who, according to
Islamic law, automatically became a Muslim when her father converted to
Islam, fled her father and was rumored to be hiding in the church.
Again, one is reminded that the Conditions of Omar stipulate that
Christians shall not prevent any of their family members from
converting to Islam—or in this case, aid a hapless Christian who,
because of Sharia law, found herself Muslim one day.

No to Churches, Period

In June 2011, hundreds of Muslims
surrounded another St. George Church, south of Minya, vowing to kill
its priest—who was locked inside serving morning mass to several
parishioners. The Muslims cried “We will kill the priest, we will kill
him and no one will prevent us,” adding that they would “cut him to
pieces.” As usual, police and security forces gave the terrorists
ample time to terrorize—appearing a full five hours after the incident
began; and when they escorted the priest out, it “looked as if he was
the criminal, leaving his church in a police car.” Several
reasons were given for this attack, from claims that the priest had
earlier tried to make renovations to the 100-year old church, to claims
that the priest refused demands from local Muslims that the Christians
in the region must pay jizya.

In May 2011, hundreds of Muslims,
angered by the prospect of a government-closed church re-opening in
their neighborhood, protested and rioted in front of the church,
causing the provisional military authority to back away from its
promise to reopen it. Before its scheduled reopening, the Church of the
Virgin Mary and St. Abraam in Ain Shams, a poor section of northeastern
Cairo, was surrounded by Muslims preventing anyone from getting in and
trapping the priests who were inside. Fights ensued between Copts
and Muslims, leading to the injury and arrest of the former. Muslims
besieged the church and threatened to kill the head priest of the
congregation, trapping those inside.

Other times, the mere rumor of a
church being built or renovated prompts Muslim violence and
chaos. On January 16, 2013, hundreds of Muslims in
the village of Fanous destroyed a social services building belonging to
a Coptic Church while chanting Islamic slogans. Security forces arrived
only after the building was completely destroyed. “The social services
building had all the necessary government permits; it had a reception
hall on the first floor and a kindergarten on the second. But the
Muslims insisted that it would become a church.” Even so,
surrounding mosques began called on Muslims through their megaphones to
go and help their Muslim brethren in Fanous, because Christians were
“building a church.”

Earlier, in March 2012, some 1,500
Muslims—several armed with swords and knives and shouting Islamic
slogans—terrorized the Notre Dame Language School in Upper Egypt, in
response to calls from local mosques which falsely claimed that the
private school was building a church: “Two nuns were besieged in the
school’s guesthouse for some eight hours by a murderous mob threatening
to burn them alive”; one nun suffered a “major nervous breakdown
requiring hospitalization… The entire property was ransacked and
looted. The next day the Muslims returned and terrorized the children.
Consequently, school attendance has dropped by at least one third.”

In fact, attacks on convents in
Egypt—often followed by mass rapes—have a long history. Maqrizi
recounts several, including one at the hands of a caliph, Marwan
II (r.744–50). During one of his raids ordered on churches and
monasteries, Marwan “made captive a number of women from among the nuns
of several convents. And he tried to seduce one of them.” The
account describes how the enslaved nun deceived him into killing him,
by telling him she had a magic oil that make skin impenetrable: “She
then took some oil and anointed herself with it; then stretched out her
neck, which he smote with the sword, and made her head fly. He
then understood that she preferred death to defilement.”

Islamic Supremacism

Other attacks are simple byproducts
of the culture of Islamic supremacism, and the hate and contempt it
engenders for Christians and their “houses of infidelity.” On
Friday, February 15, Muslims in the village of Sarsena attacked and set
fire to the church of St. George and hurled stones at it. This
latest assault was prompted by Salafi Muslims instigating the villagers
to attack the church because it is “an unlawful neighbor to the Muslims
who live adjacent to it and must therefore be moved.” According
to the report, “The mob climbed to the church dome and started
demolishing it and setting it on fire. The dome collapsed into the
burning church and caused great damage. Muslims used bricks from the
dome and the holy cross and hurled it at the altar inside the church,
causing part of it to be demolished; all the icons of saints were
destroyed.” Security was present throughout this entire attack
but did nothing.

In October 2012, another group of
Muslims, led by Mostafa Kamel, a prosecutor at the Alexandria Criminal
Court, broke into the Church of St. Mary in Rashid near Alexandria and
proceeded to destroy its altar, under claims that he bought the 9th
century church, which, in fact, was earlier sold to the Copts by the
Greeks due to the latter’s dwindling numbers in Egypt. Two
priests, Fr. Maximos and Fr. Luke, rushed to the police station for
aid. Kamel and his two sons also came to the police station where they
openly threatened to kill the two priests and their lawyer. Said Fr.
Maximos: “We stayed at the police station for over six hours with the
police begging prosecutor Kamel and his two sons not to demolish the
church”; Fr. Luke said that the prosecutor had earlier lost all the
cases he brought against the church, “So when this route failed, he
tried taking the matter into his own hands.”

In June 2012, because many visiting
Christians came to attend service, Muslims surrounded St. Lyons Coptic
Church during Divine Liturgy “demanding that the visiting Copts leave
the church before the completion of prayers, and threatening to burn
down the church if their demand was not met.” The priest contacted
police asking for aid only to be told to comply with Muslim demands,
“and do not let buses with visitors to come to the church anymore.”
Christian worshippers exited halfway through Mass to jeers outside. As
they drove away, Muslims hurled stones at the buses.

The same story repeated itself in
October 2012, when a Muslim mob consisting mostly of Salafis surrounded
the St. George Church in the Beni Suef Governorate. Armed with
batons, they assaulted Christians as they exited the church after
Sunday mass, leaving five hospitalized with broken limbs. The
Salafi grievance was that Christians from neighboring villages—who have
no churches to serve them—were traveling and attending St.
George. The priest could not go out of church for hours after
mass, even though he contacted police, who only came after a prominent
Coptic lawyer complained to the Ministry of Interior concerning the
lack of response from police, saying “I want the whole world to know
that a priest and his congregation are presently held captives in their
church, afraid of the Salafi Muslims surrounding the church.”

This desire to make things
complicated for Christians by not allowing them to enter churches out
of their jurisdiction is echoed by Muslim prophet Muhammad’s command to
Muslims: “Do not initiate the Salam [peace greeting] to the Jews and
Christians, and if you meet any of them in a road, force them to its
narrowest alley,” which has always been interpreted to mean that
Muslims should make things hard on dhimmis.

Outside Egypt

Amazingly, even when Copts quit
their homeland in hopes to practice their Christian faith in peace,
Muslim persecution follows them. Most recently, in New Jersey,
two Coptic Christian youth were found buried, decapitated and with
their hands cut off. Police say they have not been able to
unearth the motive of their murderer, a Muslim. Yet one cannot
but remember the haunting words of the Koran: “I will cast terror into
the hearts of those who disbelieve, so strike [them] upon the necks
[decapitate them] and strike from them every fingertip.” [Koran 8:12]

Coptic churches are under attack
outside Egypt. In Libya, for example, where, thanks to U.S.
support, “freedom fighters” took over the nation, on Sunday, December
30, 2012, an explosion rocked a Coptic Christian church near the
western city of Misrata, where a group of U.S. backed rebels hold a
major checkpoint, killing two. Two months later, on February 28,
another Coptic Christian church located in Benghazi, Libya, was
attacked by armed Muslim militants, resulting in serious injuries for
the priest and an assistant. This is to say nothing of the
approximately 100 Coptic Christians who were arrested and
tortured—including with acid and by having their heads shaven,
concentration camp style—on the accusation that they were trying to
“proselytize” to Libyans. One Christian man, Ezzat Atallah, died
under torture.

The attacks on Christian churches
have now even reached North America. In Canada in late October
2012, just as happens regularly in Egypt, a Molotov cocktail was hurled
through the window of a newly opened Coptic church near Toronto.
Unlike in Egypt, however, firefighters came quickly, even as “Police
have no suspects or motive in the incident.” Needless to say, for
centuries, Copts have only been all too familiar with the suspects and
motives. Thus as Egypt’s Christians flee their indigenous
homeland searching to worship in peace, the jihad of hate follows.

Conclusion

While the above anecdotes, both past
and present, have almost exclusively dealt with Egypt, the fact is that
churches throughout the entire Islamic world have experienced, and
continue to experience, a similar pattern of abuse at the hands of
Muslims. The key to understanding why Egypt is especially
paradigmatic has to do with numbers. How many Christians and
Muslims there are in any given country—especially their ratio to one
another—is the primary factor behind which countries see the most and
least attacks on Christian churches. For example, Saudi Arabia,
which is vehemently more anti-Christian than Egypt, also sees much less
accounts of persecution of Christians. The reason for this conundrum is
simple: Saudi Arabia has nipped the problem in the bud by banning
Christianity altogether; there are no churches to bomb or burn.
Similarly, the ravages of the historic jihad have seen the decimation
of Christianity in Muslim lands not traditionally deemed “radical.” For
instance, the whole of north Africa—which, prior to the Islamic
conquests, was Christian, giving the world giants like St. Augustine
who played a major role in articulating Western Christianity—sees much
less Christian persecution than Egypt, simply because there are
virtually no Christians left to persecute (less than 1% of the entire
population, from Morocco to Libya).

On the other hand, the very large
numbers of Christians in Egypt—according to the baptismal records of
the Coptic Orthodox Church, there are some 16 million Christian Copts
in Egypt—prompt regular attacks on Christian churches. Thus, due
to the large number of Christians in modern day Egypt, that nation
offers a live glimpse of history—a live glimpse of the fate of
Christians and their churches under centuries of Islam, and the true
reason millions of Christians ended up converting to Islam: to evade
oppression as Christians.